Jose Mourinho says the days of Man Utd raiding their rivals for their best players are long gone.

“That is the new football. When previously you were speaking about Sir Alex Ferguson’s time, this is not Germany,” Mourinho told English newspapers in quotes published on Saturday night.

“In Germany, Bayern Munich start winning the league in the summer. They go to Borussia Dortmund every year and buy their best player. One day they go there and get Robert Lewandowski. The next year, they go there, Mario Gotze. The next year they go there, Mats Hummels. So they win the league in the summer.

“Do you think I can go to Tottenham and buy two players to kill Tottenham? I can’t. I cannot go to Arsenal and buy their two best players, or go to Chelsea and bring two of the players that I love very, very much. That time is over.”

“The situation where you could start to become the champions by attacking your opponents is over in this country. If you get a player from a top club, you only get a player those clubs don’t want to keep.

“You cannot attack your rivals any more. It used to be that when one of the big clubs was getting stronger, another of the big clubs was getting weaker.

“The problem we are finding is that we are getting stronger but so are the others – they are getting powerful. That means we have to grow up again and it is going to take more time.